Question for British Imas

birdie1

Mon, Sep 12 2022, 5:54 am

Something I've always been wondering. When little kids are taught how to read. Say, car, or water. Are they told that the R is silent?

salt

Mon, Sep 12 2022, 6:01 am

Ha. That' a funny question. I'm British but my kids are growing up in Israel. I I learnt to read over 40 years ago.

But I don't think the R is silent - it's just pronounced quite softly when it's at the end of the word.

When they learn to read words like 'run' 'road' 'arrow' - they say the full R sound.

When the say 'the car and the bus' - they will also pronounce the r at the end of car, as it's followed by a vowel.

Reading 'car' is not the same as reading 'ca'.

The R is pronounced, just differently to American.

balance

Mon, Sep 12 2022, 6:07 am

birdie1 wrote:

Something I've always been wondering. When little kids are taught how to read. Say, car, or water. Are they told that the R is silent?

I'm not following your train of thought? Why would it be silent? It's pronounced just not emphasized. It's not like knife where the k is silent.

invisiblecircus

Mon, Sep 12 2022, 6:50 am

birdie1 wrote:

Something I've always been wondering. When little kids are taught how to read. Say, car, or water. Are they told that the R is silent?

No. Because it's not silent.

But we teach that draws and drawers are pronounced in the same way Very Happy

Birdee

Mon, Sep 12 2022, 8:11 am

I'm from South Africa and we also drop the 'r' s. I was tutoring a first grader, learning words that end in r and she read a book, pronouncing the words phonicallly. Suddenly she looks up and says hey, this book is written in American. 😂 Not taught that r is silent but our accents just work like that.

weasley

Mon, Sep 12 2022, 8:41 am

Uk- er here

Kids are taught the sounds 2 letters together make so for example they'll be taught what the sound 'ar' makes. Then they'll join the sound c with the ar to make c-ar. There is no extra emphasis on the r sound.

zaq

Mon, Sep 12 2022, 8:50 am

The R isn't silent, it's just barely sounded. You know, Noo Yawkuz and Southerners (Suthunuz) also pronounce "mother" as "mothah" and army as "ahmy."

Last edited by zaq on Mon, Sep 12 2022, 2:41 pm; edited 1 time in total

birdie1

Mon, Sep 12 2022, 9:47 am

balance wrote:

I'm not following your train of thought? Why would it be silent? It's pronounced just not emphasized. It's not like knife where the k is silent.

It's just something I was curious about. How an accent affects the way English is being taught. And the Queen's English was here way before the American one.

icedcoffee

Mon, Sep 12 2022, 10:06 am

zaq wrote:

The R isn't silent, it's just barely sounded. You know, Noo Yawkuz and Southerners also pronounce "mother" as "mothah" and army as "ahmy."

True, and no one explicitly taught me that "o" can make an "aw" sound but I still pronounce coffee and chocolate as cawfee and chawklit. Wink

zaq

Mon, Sep 12 2022, 2:40 pm

icedcoffee wrote:

True, and no one explicitly taught me that "o" can make an "aw" sound but I still pronounce coffee and chocolate as cawfee and chawklit. Wink

They must have. How did you learn to read off and soft, which your Midwestern friends pronounce ahff and sahft?

scruffy

Mon, Sep 12 2022, 2:44 pm

I think it's similar to how Americans pronounce "t" in middle/ end of a word... I hear the sound even though I'm essentially dropping it...

BrisketBoss

Mon, Sep 12 2022, 2:49 pm

scruffy wrote:

I think it's similar to how Americans pronounce "t" in middle/ end of a word... I hear the sound even though I'm essentially dropping it...

And even we Americans don't actually say a 't' sound. We do an alveolar flap. Americans, consciously try saying 'butter' with the same consonant sound in the middle as the consonant sound that begins the word 'train.' It will sound funny.

And Brits have a consonant in the middle too. It's called a glottal stop.

Fun with linguistics!

BrisketBoss

Mon, Sep 12 2022, 3:22 pm

As far as I can tell, Brits do not end 'car' with a soft consonant as some said here, although I can see why it might be that way in your head (like in our heads, we have a t in butter). You end it with a specific long vowel.

BrisketBoss

Mon, Sep 12 2022, 3:25 pm

UK International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA): /kɑː/

(The dots mean the vowel is long)

This is as I suspected.

invisiblecircus

Mon, Sep 12 2022, 3:44 pm

BrisketBoss wrote:

Americans, consciously try saying 'butter' with the same consonant sound in the middle as the consonant sound that begins the word 'train.' It will sound funny

I'm British and the consonant sound that begins the word "train" is the same as the sound that begins the word "chair." I thought Americans also pronounced it like that. Is that not the case?

PinkFridge

Mon, Sep 12 2022, 3:49 pm

invisiblecircus wrote:

I'm British and the consonant sound that begins the word "train" is the same as the sound that begins the word "chair." I thought Americans also pronounced it like that. Is that not the case?

There's a subtle difference.

BrisketBoss

Mon, Sep 12 2022, 3:55 pm

invisiblecircus wrote:

I'm British and the consonant sound that begins the word "train" is the same as the sound that begins the word "chair." I thought Americans also pronounced it like that. Is that not the case?

I start chair with a t + sh sound. I don't start train that way, no. Just the t.

mum22

Mon, Sep 12 2022, 3:57 pm

invisiblecircus wrote:

I'm British and the consonant sound that begins the word "train" is the same as the sound that begins the word "chair." I thought Americans also pronounced it like that. Is that not the case?

TR is a blend
CH is a digraph

angelgirl

Mon, Sep 12 2022, 3:59 pm

birdie1 wrote:

Something I've always been wondering. When little kids are taught how to read. Say, car, or water. Are they told that the R is silent?

They are not told the R is silent, but sounds like ‘er’ and ‘ar’ are taught as digraphs and the R is just not as strong as when taught the sound R on its own. Maybe because the children can all talk by the time they learn to read, that’s why it works? So when they are taught ‘ar’ like car, they know what it’s supposed to sound like!
I do love the way we teach reading here though! Do all other countries learn phonetically as well nowadays?